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I came from Windows XP, after it clogging up once again, i decided to switch to linux for good. First i was looking at Ubuntu (having played with it a few times) but then i found out about Mint. I love it to bits.

However like almost every beginner i have some issue's / questions, i hope someone may be able to answer some of them

Whenever i enable my touchpad (hp pavilion dv9000) a window pops up with the title 'Desktop' and it looks like a general help window. It does not appear when i disable my touchpad.

Can i remove the 'Elyssa' text next to my startbutton? I'm a minimalist and i want my taskbar to be as clean as possible

Is there some sort of taskmanager? I opened RCT3 in wine, and it took over the entire screen, i was unable to do anything. Any equivalant of Ctrll alt delete?

There's a small hardware button just above my touchpad, to enable and disable it. When i enable it by pressing the button (so the touchpad becomes active and i can move the mouse), a window also opens, called 'desktop'. When i disable my touchpad, nothing weird happens, it just goes off.